TODAY’S DEVOTION (WEDNESDAY 13TH DECEMBER 2023)
“Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were pleading through us: we implore you on Christ’s behalf, be reconciled to God.” 2 Corinthians 5:20 NKJV
WELCOME TO THE 347TH DAY OF OUR YEAR OF SIGNS AND WONDERS.
It is a fresh day from the LORD of host, maker of Heaven and earth.
We believe that the Mercies of the LORD and His compassion on suffering humanity, will stir the hand of the LORD to reach out and touch someone’s heart and life today.
The LORD God has spoken, who can but prophesy! Woe is me if I preach not the gospel. My mandate is to serve my generation according to the will of God. I and they that the LORD has given me, we are made for signs and wonders.
We at the Cry of the Spirit are alive because God wants His word to be heard by our hands. We do not deserve to be even used by Him. Our individual histories disqualify us. But He is our God and King, a merciful Father, hence qualifying and enlisting us to serve.
We do not take that for granted. So, we are grateful.
By His mercies, grace, and power, we are awake to our responsibility and prophetic purpose as Christ ambassadors, on the face of the earth. We were born for such a time like this.
Earthly success is not our goal, and will never be. Heavenly success is our greatest passion. That is why we are always putting resources together, to handle one kingdom need and another, mobilizing ourselves every day, week, month and year, with monies we would have used to take care of our personal needs.
The course of our God is greater than our earthly needs.
Someone may think we are stupid not caring about our personal needs like selfish people do, or earthly success. But they fail to realize that, no one who refuse to live their lives according to their personal needs, or pursue Heavenly success at the expense of earthly success fails on earth.
All who lived their lives meeting the needs of God’s kingdom on earth, and pursuing Heavenly success, succeeded greatly before they died.
OUR FATHER ABRAHAM COMES TO MIND AT THIS POINT. THE BIBLE SAYS,
“By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to the place which he would receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going.
“By faith he dwelt in the land of promise as in a foreign country, dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise; for he waited for the city which has foundations, whose builder and maker is God. Hebrews 11:8-10 NKJV
Many of us do not know that when Abraham left his father’s house, his drive was not a physical land out there to be possessed. The Americanize gospel on the lips of many preachers, have presented it that way for decades. His desire and drive were a vision of a Heavenly City he saw; specifically, the New Jerusalem.
Like I said, many preachers have preached the opposite for decades. They have dispensed their energy and resources measuring Abraham’s success in material acquisition, without seeing the real picture.
The Bible went on to say;
“For those who say such things declare plainly that they seek a homeland. And truly if they had called to mind that country from which they had come out, they would have had opportunity to return.
But now they desire a better, that is, a heavenly country.
Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for He has prepared a city for them.” Hebrews 11:14-16 NKJV
You can now see why God told Moses, “I shall be called the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. That is my name forever.” The Bible says God was not ashamed to be called their God for He has prepared a City for them. People who are eternity driven, have a way of leaving eternal land marks on the sand of time. God will never be ashamed to be called their God.
It was the spiritual sighting or vision of the city; the new Jerusalem, that moved Abraham out of His father’s house. Time has come for us to check the foundations of our spiritual drives and why we are following the LORD!
Most of us are not driven by the Heavenly; hence God is ashamed to call Himself our God. And because He is ashamed of calling himself our God, we do not see Him break out against our enemies when they move against us. We do not see Him move marvelously the way He did in the days of the Bible; because of all that, we fail on earth, even in places we ought to have succeeded.
WE MAY BE PROUDLY CALLING GOD OUR GOD, BUT IS HE PROUDLY CALLING HIMSELF OUR GOD?
That is the big question this morning. Whenever God proudly call Himself our God, we see His glory in our lives. Whenever He is not ashamed to call Himself our God, He brings us into the things He has prepared for us before the foundation of the world.
What can we glean from these scriptures?
The vision and passion of those seeking earthly success is different from that of people who seek the Heavenly. Those who seek earthly success look for money to build the best houses on earth. But those who seek the Heavenly, looks for the City whose maker and builder is God.
The beauty of it all is that those who seek the Heavenly City, with foundations, whose builder and maker is God, will end up inheriting houses on earth that they did not build. That was what God revealed in the lives of the Israelites.
God brought them into earthly successes that they never laboured for. Moses said to them;
“For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and springs, that flow out of valleys and hills; a land of wheat and barley, of vines and fig trees and pomegranates, a land of olive oil and honey; a land in which you will eat bread without scarcity, in which you will lack nothing; a land whose stones are iron and out of whose hills you can dig copper.
When you have eaten and are full, then you shall bless the Lord your God for the good land which He has given you. Deuteronomy 8:7-10 NKJV
When we follow God in pursuit of the Heavenly, He will bring us into earthly blessings we did not labour for.
I have come to discover that people who labour for the Heavenly end up inheriting the earthly. But those who labour for the earthly end up losing both the heavenly and the earthly.
THAT IS WHY WE AT THE CRY OF THE SPIRIT MINISTRIES MAKE THE HEAVENLY OUR PASSION AND PURSUIT.
You can join this chariot! We know that even if God refuse to give us the earthly success people crave for, we will still inherit things in the next life; eternal things that those who run after the earthly will never see.
Our devotional text this morning says;
“Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were pleading through us: we implore you on Christ’s behalf, be reconciled to God.” 2 Corinthians 5:20 NKJV
An ambassador is a diplomat. We are diplomats of Christ. A diplomate does not represent his interest in a foreign land. He or she represents the interest of the home country in a foreign land.
That is how it should be with all believers.
Our home land is Heaven, our foreign land is earth. We are to represent the interest of our home land here on earth. One way we do that, is by refusing to make the earthly our purpose for living.
Our salvation makes it illegal for us spend our days pursuing the earthly, especially at the expense of the heavenly. It makes it illegal for us to be selfish. It makes it illegal for us to use God to pursue selfish ambitions.
When I was growing up in these things, I use to wonder what we really expect from God. I use to wonder why some of us in Church today, treat Him and His servants like tools for the realization of our selfish desires, while few do not. But now I know; it’s because our passions are not the same.
Some of us are in Church to use God in getting what we want. But few of us are in Church to allow God use us to get all He wants done on earth, done.
To the sensibility of many, the Church, God, or His servants, are like a Hospital or clinic. A hospital or Clinic is only important when people are sick. But once they are healthy, they are no longer important. That is how many treat God, His Church, and servants.
When they have problems, they seek God, His Church, or His servants. But once they are free from their problems, they disconnect from God, His Church, or His servants.
Though Jesus is called the Great Physician, but God should not be treated as our Hospital. God is our dwelling place. He should be treated that way. The great Physician want to heal your soul diseases so that you can make God your dwelling place, or home.
IF YOU DO NOT MAKE HIM YOUR DWELLING PLACE IN TIME, YOU WILL MOURN BOTH IN TIME AND ETERNITY.
I use to define the Church to be a spiritual hospital, God the doctor, and us the patients. I did that because of what Jesus said about the sick needing a doctor. But God brought me out of that, when He gave me a deeper revelation of what Church is in the book of Ephesians.
If we just reduce Church to be a hospital, we the patients, and God the doctor, then we are not seeing things in God’s apostolic and prophetic order. That is why people do not have an intimate relationship with God! They only have contact with Him.
No patient really has an intimate relationship with a doctor, a hospital, clinic or dispensary. We all have contact with them; not intimate relationships.
That is why no one has ever moved out of his or her home to go live with a doctor forever in a hospital, clinic, or dispensary. We should therefore not treat God that way.
God is different. He wants people who will live with Him, and relate with Him intimately. Not sick people who will get healed and go back to live the way they want. He is not a consultant of eternity or spiritual affairs; neither are His servants.
He is our dwelling place, and His servants are His arm for returning us back to Him.
So, if you are treating Him either as a clinic, a hospital, or a consultant, you will never make it in your walk with Him. There are realms of glory you will never come into, have the revelation to embrace, or walk in.
We must all come into a selfless worship of God.
True worship actually does not involve self, because in the realm of worship, man is not the focus, God is. So, if your Christianity is still about you, you are not yet a true worshiper; you may be a worshiper but you are not a true worshiper. And don’t forget, God is looking for true worshipers not just any worshiper.
It’s my prayer that, the Holy Spirit will use these truths, to fire you into proper alignment with GOD, and come into the fullness of Christ. AMEN!
MAKE THIS SCRIPTURE AN ADDITIONAL MEDITATION FOR THE DAY
“So now, brethren, I commend you to God and to the word of His grace, which is able to build you up and give you an inheritance among all those who are sanctified. Acts 20:32-NKJV